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STAMFORD -- East Side residents hoping for an influx of upscale apartment buildings and stores in their neighborhood are worried that a planning study could kill momentum for a new Metro-North Railroad station between Springdale and Stamford on the New Canaan branch.

While business owners and developers have pressed for a rail link on East Main Street, the $180,000 study begun last year by the South Western Regional Planning Agency is expected to recommend some type of parking on East Main Street and a new terminal for buses to take commuters to the Stamford rail station, said Jim Grunberger, a business owner and chairman of the East Side Partnership.

"The study is supposed to link large-scale transit-oriented development to rail along the Metro-North New Haven Line," Grunberger said. "We've had two public hearings and everybody is jumping up and down that we want trains. We don't want to ghetto-ize our neighborhood. Everybody wants a train."

East Side residents will get a chance to hear the latest results of the ongoing East Main Street Transit Node Feasibility Study this week at a public presentation Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Stamford Government Center.

The study was begun last year with the goal of recommending ways to link East Main Street with the still unfinished Stamford Urban Transitway, which will connect the Stamford rail station to the city's East Side.

Floyd Lapp, executive director for SWRPA, said that the potential cost and technical hurdles to establishing a rail station make establishing more bus service a good first step toward improving mobility for nearby residents.

If ridership growth outstrips capacity at the Stamford rail station and residential development patterns dictate it, a more compelling argument could be made to dedicate funds for an East Main Street station either on the New Canaan branch or the New Haven main line, Lapp said.

"I think it is part of a grow-as-you-go philosophy to start with a bus facility to hopefully a branch line facility and, eventually, in the long term, if there is ridership growth at the Stamford rail station, a main line station," Lapp said.

The study is one of eight being conducted in cities including Norwalk, Bridgeport and New Haven and funded by a $3.5 million Sustainable Communities grant program of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to assess ways to improve links to rail and other transit modes.

HUD has projected that population growth in coming decades is expected to concentrate as much as 81 percent of the nation's population in cities.

Preliminary results of the study aired at a public hearing held late last year evaluated three general areas near East Main Street for the potential rail stations, but suggested that all of them involved potential hurdles.

A potential rail station on Culloden Road, in a residential neighborhood, might have less area economic influence, but could accommodate a link to either the main New Haven Line or the New Canaan branch without reconfiguring tracks, which is considered prohibitively expensive.

A second option to put a branch line station on East Main Street at the railroad trestle would put a rail connection in the center of the neighborhood and result in a potential economic boom in the area. That could face resistance from the Federal Railroad Administration, which would have to approve a track realignment.

A third location, south of East Main Street under the Interstate 95 overpass, would not require any property acquisition or realigning tracks, but would require relocating overpass support pillars and crash walls.

Eva Weller, executive director for the East Side Partnership said that a meeting between the group and SWRPA officials to discuss the study's progress last week said she had hoped the study would give greater consideration to how to build a railroad station in the near, rather than more distant future.

"It basically says it will be a phased in approach over time," she said. "Putting surface parking on the East Side will reinforce the notion that the East Side is a drive-through area and not drive the type of development we're looking for."

Rail advocates and other opponents of a potential future East Main Street train station have questioned the need and practicality of an extra stop on the New Canaan branch or New Haven main line given the proximity of the neighborhood to the Stamford railroad station. They say there are other pressing transportation infrastructure needs.

Jeffrey Maron, a Stamford commuter and member of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, said he understands the desires of local property owners who want to pursue development, but he believes the insertion of an East Main Street station cannot be justified given the existing four branch line stations and the proximity of Stamford station to the proposed facility.

"I remain open to the concept. but unconvinced thus far on the merits of the arguments in favor," Maron said. "The time required to stop the train and then reaccelerate given how close it is to Glenbrook and lack of reasonable available parking nearby, my preference would be to spend the money on improved bus service."